CHHANDOGYA Upanishad says that at the time of creation the world's egg divided itself into two parts, the one of silver and the other of gold. The silver part became the earth, the golden part the sky .The outer cover of the egg became the mountains; the inner cover the clouds and snow; the inside veins became the rivers and the liquid in the egg became the ocean. When the sun appeared there was a great cry from which all the beings and all their pleasures were born. Hence at his rising and setting, cries and songs are heard; all beings and desires rise toward it. Those who worship the sun as the Absolute ever hear beautiful sounds and are filled with joy.
The well-known horses of SURYA are mentioned in Rig Veda, which says, "May SURYA with its seven horses arrive";. The sun sits on a lotus in his chariot of seven golden mares. Sometimes the chariot has only one horse with seven heads surrounded with rays. Surya's charioteer is ARUNA (the red one), who is the wise elder brother of GARUDAA, the vehicle of VISHNU, and is also the deity of dawn. He stands on the chariot in front of the Sun, and his strong and vast body shelters the world from Surya's fury.
Procreator (SAVITAR), Lord-of-the-Day (AHARPATI), Eye-of-the-World (JAGAT CHAKSHU), Witness-of Deeds (KARMA SAKSHIN) or Lord-of-Seven Horses (SAPTASHVA) is the various names by which SURYA is worshipped.
Though small images or visual representations of this god can be seen in bit temples of other gods, SURYA has only one full-fledged temple dedicated to it. It isthe famous temple of Sun god at KONARK in Orissa. The structural peculiarity of this shrine is that it is built mainly of blocks of laterite without the use of mortar. The blocks are all held together by a system of poise and balance - a masterpiece of the science of architecture. In this temple the weight of one stone acts against the pressure of another, much of the stability being a matter of balance and equilibrium. The temple was built in the thirteenth century A.D. but seems to have been later abandoned for some unknown reasons.